Mrit posted:

When you start labeling GM food, people will avoid it because it will look like a warning label. This will push people away from the product and make stores drop them to look 'green'.
Basically it's a back door to banning GMO's, just like they 'banned' irradiated food.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Not if they label everything. As in, you go to the supermarket, and suddenly everything says "Oh, this also may have GMO's in it because we didn't bother checking it because there is no evidence it could harm you." Except a few things in the Organic section. Then it's basically business as usual. They just need to own this.

computer parts posted:

I'm curious as to how this would work for fresh fruit.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Not if they label everything. As in, you go to the supermarket, and suddenly everything says "Oh, this also may have GMO's in it because we didn't bother checking it because there is no evidence it could harm you." Except a few things in the Organic section. Then it's basically business as usual. They just need to own this.

Strudel Man posted:

The food industry is pretty well consolidated, but not enough that this would work. There would be a competitive advantage to having non-GM products under a labeling scheme, and it's not one that everyone would be willing to ignore for the sake of "GM is actually fine" universal labeling.

Strudel Man posted:

The food industry is pretty well consolidated, but not enough that this would work. There would be a competitive advantage to having non-GM products under a labeling scheme, and it's not one that everyone would be willing to ignore for the sake of "GM is actually fine" universal labeling.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

If the following graphic was not pulled out of someone's rear end, then a whole lot of the industry came together against labeling. It seems like basically biting the bullet once and showing it as being bullshit would be cheaper than having to fight and lobby against labeling every single state, every single appeal, etc.

Deteriorata posted:

Them actually agreeing together to label everything would probably be illegal collusion and restraint of trade. If there was a market that would pay more for No-GMO labeled produce, the agreement would break down pretty quickly. That's the point of competition.

They don't have a choice but to oppose labeling in the first place.

quote:

"This study has now successfully passed no less than three rounds of rigorous peer review."

[...]

The study examines the health effects on rats of eating Roundup-tolerant NK603 genetically modified (GM) maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup application, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb of the full pesticide containing glyphosate and adjuvants) in drinking water. It found:

-"Biochemical analyses confirmed very significant chronic kidney deficiencies, for all treatments and both sexes; 76% of the altered parameters were kidney-related.
-"In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5 to 5.5 times higher. Marked and severe nephropathies were also generally 1.3 to 2.3 times greater.
-"In females, all treatment groups showed a two- to threefold increase in mortality, and deaths were earlier.
-"This difference was also evident in three male groups fed with GM maize.
-"All results were hormone- and sex-dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable.
-"Females developed large mammary tumors more frequently and before controls;
-"the pituitary was the second most disabled organ;
-"the sex hormonal balance was modified by consumption of GM maize and Roundup treatments.
-"Males presented up to four times more large palpable tumors starting 600 days earlier than in the control group, in which only one tumor was noted.
-"These results may be explained by not only the non-linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup but also by the overexpression of the EPSPS transgene or other mutational effects in the GM maize and their metabolic consequences.
-"Our findings imply that long-term (2 year) feeding trials need to be conducted to thoroughly evaluate the safety of GM foods and pesticides in their full commercial formulations."

[...]

"The most obvious deficiency relates to the fact that the current approval process is based on animal feeding trials of only 90 days, a totally inadequate duration when one considers that chronic diseases in animals and humans do not usually manifest until mid-life."

A second deficiency, he added, relates to the newly emerging science of epigenetics - which demonstrates that endocrine systems can be seriously disrupted by the presence of chemical residues at concentrations as low as a few parts per billion.

"This turns on its head the logic of an approval process based on MRL (maximum residue levels), since it is becoming increasingly apparent that these chemicals have patterns of non-linear response."

gently caress You And Diebold posted:

Just saw this, the paper from a few years ago about roundup ready corn was republished after another peer-review cycle and modifications addressing earlier concerns, any thoughts from you guys?
http://www.alternet.org/food/major-study-demonstrates-monsanto-gmo-corn-product-can-cause-damage-liver-and-kidneys-and?page=0%2C0


The tone of the alternet article puts me off, but it has some interesting stuff in there.

quote:

"A more in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached with this small sample size regarding the role of either NK603 or glyphosate in regards to overall mortality or tumor incidence. Given the known high incidence of tumors in the Sprague-Dawley rat, normal variability cannot be excluded as the cause of the higher mortality and incidence observed in the treated groups."

AVeryLargeRadish posted:

I think we would need to see the full paper to make any useful judgments about it's validity. One thing pointed out in the article though:


This makes it sound like they used a breed of rat with an already high rate of tumor growth and that the tumor rate for the sample was within the normal variance for that breed of rat. It also sounds like their sample size might have been statistically insignificant.

In any case, I would say that more publicly funded research should be done before making any significant regulatory changes.

quote:

The major criticisms of the Seralini manuscript were that the proper strain of rats was not used and their numbers were too small. Neither criticism is valid. The strain of rat is that required by the FDA for drug toxicology, and the toxic effects were unambiguously significant. In fact, Monsanto published a similar study in the same journal eight years before using the same number and strain of rats. Their study was for 90 days and claimed no harm. In contrast, the Seralini study was for two years and did not see any tumors until after nine months.

quote:

However it was retracted by the editor-in-chief of the Journal in November 2013 after a sustained campaign of criticism and defamation by pro-GMO scientists.

meat sweats posted:

The study was garbage, the people behind it are nutjob crusaders, the experiment was intentionally designed poorly to reach a certain conclusion, and, even though the journal can't say it for fear of libel laws, the data was probably fabricated: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691512005637

"Pro-GMO scientists" (aka, "scientists") had no problem explaining why this was bullshit. Unsurprisingly, it had to move from a real journal to a meaningless house organ of the European anti-technology movement http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/06/25/examining-environmental-sciences-europe-journal-that-re-published-seralini-study/ in order to get published.
By the way, and you should not be surprised at this point, it's categorically untrue that no data from the thousands of studies showing no harm from GMO crops are available, but it is true that Seralini requires reports to sign confidentiality agreements prohibiting them from discussing anything but his press releases before doing interviews, and that he continues to stonewall inquiries over his falsified study and drop out of debates and interviews at the last minute if he find out anyone but anti-GMO people will be present.

gently caress You And Diebold posted:

Yeah, I noticed that too, but the article itself points out/argues that that is from one of three peer review sources, was only done after intense industry pressure, and links to this which criticizes the retraction, mainly


Definitely agree that more research needs to be done, but the main conclusions of the paper itself are that the testing times need to be re-examined (90 days may not be enough) and that ""This turns on its head the logic of an approval process based on MRL (maximum residue levels), since it is becoming increasingly apparent that these chemicals have patterns of non-linear response.""

Edit: the entire paper is open access and can be found here: http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14

blowfish posted:

Essentially, if you see Seralini as an author on a paper, it's not worth reading. Pretty much the only useful thing he said in the paper is the rather obvious statement that long term studies are good.

Adventure Pigeon posted:

I should point out that for many journals the editors lack as much expertise as they should have. Further, there's been a tendency to pass a lot of work off to "junior editors" who usually have even less expertise. This results in the journal soliciting the scientists themselves for a list of potential peer reviewers with several conditions meant to reduce the chance of a conflict of interest. Under ideal circumstances and good faith on the part of the researchers, this system ensures the peer reviewers are those best able to understand the performed research. When the authors have an agenda, as it's kinda clear these guys do, it's easy to select sympathetic peer reviewers who will give even bad research a pass. Thus, the follow-up reviews after the research has been published tend to have more credibility, especially in a field like this where only general expertise is really required to understand the research.

meat sweats posted:

billions of people eat GMO corn and tomatoes every day with no ill effects

meat sweats posted:

This thread hasn't talked much about fundamental attitudes towards science, but this is a good start. In my view (which is basically the mainstream view) good science is composed of four pillars:

*Peer review
*Reproducibility
*Falsifiability
*Proper experimental design, especially vis-a-vis a control group

The Seralini research is questionable or already failed on all counts. The peer review process proclaimed it worthless. It is reproducible in that the experiment is laid out in the paper and could be done again by anyone, so it is not pseudoscience in this respect, but if the experiment is done again and again and fails to get similar results, then the results have not been reproduced so it is most likely bad or unreliable science. It's questionable whether anything in the anti-GMO creed is falsifiable -- no matter how many billions of people eat GMO corn and tomatoes every day with no ill effects, they always call for more testing or change the topic to biodiversity or corporate power. This is a hallmark of pseudo- or non-science -- setting up a fortress of rhetoric so that there is no conceivable real-world event that could prove the hypothesis wrong. As for the last one, this particular experiment was a nightmare from an experimental design perspective, particularly because the control group was rats known to spontaneously produce tumors, so the results would have little value all else aside.

meat sweats posted:

I think the principles above are designed to allow research to speak for itself free of biases and not have to go down the "whose interests are you speaking for" path. All research has to be funded by somebody and people can tar science they don't like all day long by pointing to unrelated crimes of the US or French governments or some corporation. It's particularly unhelpful in the food and drug testing arena, since companies are REQUIRED to conduct and fund their own tests as part of the safety regulation regime.

With that said, just for laughs, of course Seralini is funded by Greenpeace and sits on the board of two luddite anti-tech organizations, in actual fact, while his opponents are people who work for universities and the like but are accused of being secret Monsanto puppets using typical conspiracy theory logic (i.e., "only a deluded or evil person would ever disagree with me, therefore by the fact of disagreeing with me you must be deluded by Monsanto propaganda or an evil agent of Monsanto").

Adventure Pigeon posted:

I agree, which is why I said it was tangent to the other four. There has to be some assumption of good faith in most research, though, for practical reasons. There's simply not enough time to reproduce every single experiment. For many, the question of reproducing research isn't really necessary since it's concordant with other data in the field. For many, though, we have to pick and choose what to replicate. Sometimes that's because it's a revolutionary result, but if a major conflict of interest isn't disclosed that makes it an obvious target as well.

With regards to loonies who use imagined conflicts of interest or real, stated sources of funding as reasons to doubt research, gently caress 'em, you can't convince them anyways. You can just try to minimize the damage they do.

Absurd Alhazred posted:

The way to enforce "good faith" is to make sure to fall down like a ton of bricks on anyone who betrays that trust. Which hasn't happened with Séralini, unfortunately.

Adventure Pigeon posted:

The hammer rarely comes down as hard as it should. Wakefield should be a standard, not an anomaly. Has Nature even retracted that acid-bath stem cells paper yet?

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Yep.

quote:

Republished study: long-term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

...

Background

The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant NK603 genetically modified (GM) maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup application and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb of the full pesticide containing glyphosate and adjuvants) in drinking water, were evaluated for 2 years in rats. This study constitutes a follow-up investigation of a 90-day feeding study conducted by Monsanto in order to obtain commercial release of this GMO, employing the same rat strain and analyzing biochemical parameters on the same number of animals per group as our investigation. Our research represents the first chronic study on these substances, in which all observations including tumors are reported chronologically. Thus, it was not designed as a carcinogenicity study. We report the major findings with 34 organs observed and 56 parameters analyzed at 11 time points for most organs.
Results

Biochemical analyses confirmed very significant chronic kidney deficiencies, for all treatments and both sexes; 76% of the altered parameters were kidney-related. In treated males, liver congestions and necrosis were 2.5 to 5.5 times higher. Marked and severe nephropathies were also generally 1.3 to 2.3 times greater. In females, all treatment groups showed a two- to threefold increase in mortality, and deaths were earlier. This difference was also evident in three male groups fed with GM maize. All results were hormone- and sex-dependent, and the pathological profiles were comparable. Females developed large mammary tumors more frequently and before controls; the pituitary was the second most disabled organ; the sex hormonal balance was modified by consumption of GM maize and Roundup treatments. Males presented up to four times more large palpable tumors starting 600 days earlier than in the control group, in which only one tumor was noted. These results may be explained by not only the non-linear endocrine-disrupting effects of Roundup but also by the overexpression of the EPSPS transgene or other mutational effects in the GM maize and their metabolic consequences.
Conclusion

Our findings imply that long-term (2 year) feeding trials need to be conducted to thoroughly evaluate the safety of GM foods and pesticides in their full commercial formulations.

...

quote:

There is an ongoing international debate as to the necessary length of mammalian toxicity studies, including metabolic analyses, in relation to the consumption of genetically modified (GM) plants [1]. Currently, no regulatory authority requires mandatory chronic animal feeding studies to be performed for edible genetically modified organisms (GMOs), or even short-term studies with blood analyses for the full commercial formulations of pesticides as sold and used, but only for the declared active principle alone

quote:

Furthermore, evaluation of long-term toxicity of herbicides is generally performed on mammalian physiology employing only their active principle, rather than the complete formulations as used in agriculture. This was the case for glyphosate (G) [17], the declared active chemical constituent of R. It is important to note that G is only able to efficiently penetrate target plant organisms with the help of adjuvants present in the various commercially used R formulations [18]. Even if G has shown to interact directly with the active site of aromatase at high levels [19], at low contaminating levels, adjuvants may be better candidates than G to explain the toxicity or endocrine disruptive side effects of R on human cells [8,20] and also in vivo for acute toxicity [21]. In this regard, it is noteworthy that the far greater toxicity of full agricultural formulations compared to declared supposed active principles alone has recently been demonstrated also for six other major pesticides tested in vitro[22].

quote:

We used the Sprague-Dawley strain of rat, as recommended for chronic toxicology tests by the National Toxicology Program in the USA [31], and as used by Monsanto in its 90-day study [3]. This choice is also consistent with the recommendation of the OECD that for a chronic toxicity test, rats of the same strain should be used as in studies on the same substance but of shorter duration [32].

Absurd Alhazred posted:

Imagine how much non-profit GMO research you could fund with the money thrown at this kind of bullshit.

FRINGE posted:

I havent read it except to skim and clip a bit for here.

Adventure Pigeon posted:

That's something at least. Anyhow, Seralini still seems to be publishing.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Seralini

At least, hopefully, his work is going to be heavily scrutinized from here on out.

FRINGE posted:

I havent read it except to skim and clip a bit for here.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14





Imagine how well-funded nutrition efforts would be worldwide if the entire private GM lobbying fund was seized and distributed!

Your Monsanto underwear is showing. Selectively offended much?

quote:

A spontaneous tumor incidence of 45% was noted in 360 Sprague-Dawley rats (179 males and 181 females) and a 26% incidence was seen in 254 Swiss mice (101 males and 153 females) used as untreated control animals in an 18-month series of carcinogenesis experiments.

FRINGE posted:

Your Monsanto underwear is showing.

meat sweats posted:

typical conspiracy theory logic (i.e., "only a deluded or evil person would ever disagree with me, therefore by the fact of disagreeing with me you must be deluded by Monsanto propaganda or an evil agent of Monsanto").

FRINGE posted:

Imagine how well-funded nutrition efforts would be worldwide if the entire private GM lobbying fund was seized and distributed!

Kalman posted:

Not very, since nutrition worldwide is an expensive proposition and GMO lobbying funding across the industry probably doesn't total more than 30 million a year (generous estimate.)

quote:

Monsanto’s marketing budget, which includes both brand and corporate marketing, totaled $839 million in 2010, down from $934 million in 2009, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

meat sweats posted:

FRINGE posted:

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/print-edition/2011/07/29/seed-funding.html?page=all

FRINGE posted:

I havent read it except to skim and clip a bit for here.

http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14





Imagine how well-funded nutrition efforts would be worldwide if the entire private GM lobbying fund was seized and distributed!

Your Monsanto underwear is showing. Selectively offended much?

Adventure Pigeon posted:

Isn't that the retracted study published elsewhere?